EPA Finalizes Ban on Cruise Ships Dumping Sewage in California’s Ocean Waters
The Obama administration announced Thursday it has finalized the paperwork needed to allow a California law to take effect that bans sewage dumping by cruise ships in state waters out to three miles from the coast.
The ban grew out of a bill by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, which was signed into law in 2004 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The rules needed approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, however, and the Bush administration never acted on them.
In August 2010, the EPA announced it would approve the rules, giving California the strictest ocean pollution regulations for cruise ships in the nation.
But because of federal rules requiring comment periods and public hearings, the action finalizing the rule, a signature by regional EPA administrator Jared Blumenfeld of San Francisco, did not take place until Thursday.